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The runaways are a boy and a girl. The boy is an English 15‐year‐old who has gone over the hill from a reform school; the “girl” is an escaped cheetah from a private zoo in Wiltshire. Animal lovers will identify closely with Yarra as she stalks the Salisbury plain, picking off small game and eventually—well, wait and see. Sentimentalists will empathize with the plucky youth, nicknamed “Smiler,” whose circuitous path crosses with Yarra's. Boy and beast have a common cause, so to speak; both are outcasts living off the land.

This is the kind of animal adventure story that has been rolling along since Black Beauty was a colt, and Mr. Canning is so sure of his field that he has two sequels already on the drawing board. Coming next: “Flight of the Grey Goose.”

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